The Home Office has just uploaded (25th November) its new rules for the Right to rent scheme and has also announced its new digital online service available shortly to streamline the checks.

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However a City law firm states the mandatory scheme for agents and landlords together with its continual evolvement has and will ‘fan’ racial discrimination.

The firm also believes that the new guidelines for Right to Rent and surrounding publicity will almost certainly cause many more agents and landlords not to give tenancies to overseas applicants, or to those with foreign sounding names.

Chetal Patel, partner in the City law firm Immigration practice, said: “The new push the Home Office is putting behind these checks could give rise to even greater discrimination on the basis of race and nationality.”

“Individuals who have non-English sounding names, may find themselves ignored by landlords and could struggle to find a place to live, even if they have every right to be living and working in the UK.”

“Streamlining and digitising processes doesn’t necessarily make it any easier, as not all prospective tenants or tenants will have a UK immigration status that can be checked online.”

“Placing the burden on ordinary people like Buy-to-Let investors to undertake the policing of immigration rules is a poor policy decision in the first place.”

“The government has come under fire for its Hostile Environment Policy, culminating in the Windrush scandal and this latest service could add fuel to the fire.”

A trade body has recently written to the government to highlight the amount of extra work and burden of responsibility onto agents and landlords to be fully compliant with the ever changing legislation and rules for Rent to Rent.

The Home Office has now stated that within eight weeks of the most recent measures being lifted when the virus finally peters out, agents and landlords “will also need to carry out full retrospective checks on tenants who started their tenancy during this period.”

In the trade body’s letter to MP Kevin Foster - the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Minister for Future Borders and Immigration, it warns the huge burden of extra work will be virtually impossible for agents and landlords to carry out within the Home Office’s timescale.

Richard Merrick of PIMS said: “Unless an agent or landlord or agent has demonstrated they have undertaken appropriate diligence to their Right to Rent checks they will could face unlimited fines, a criminal record therefore for not being a ‘fit and proper person’ to rent out properties under the 2004 Housing Act, consequently having to use agents and worst still going to jail for up to 5 years.”

To view the latest Right to Rent regulations click here